Fear that CWD could be transmitted to humans has not helped the domestic market for elk meat, and the South Koreans, the main customers for antlers, have embargoed North American velvet.A moratorium on the movement of all captive elk has just been lifted in Colorado, but the damage is still being felt.
It seems George Osborne and Lib Dem Energy Secretary Ed Davey have learned all about "taking out the trash", because late on Friday afternoon, with a press release announcement embargoed until the middle of the night on the weekend before the Budget, they slipped out what is easily their most significant environmental decision since the coalition took power.
Although the report is laid in Parliament at 2pm, it is embargoed from the media until one minute past midnight on Thursday, so TV interviews will wait until the following morning.
Though opening night is 10 March, reviews are embargoed until 14. "It's a really big week for openings so we have press performances up until 12 March to give critics the opportunity to come on a date that suits," I'm told.
He applauds Buchner's Woyzeck, with its first working class anti-hero, where style undergoes a revolution and scenes come at us in brief outbursts, stabs of energy, as if letter-writing had been embargoed to be replaced by a fusillade of bad news telegrams.
The upcoming movie from Birdman's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu had its first press screenings in Hollywood last weekend and, while reviews are embargoed until 1 December, it wasn't long before the lucky audiences were sharing their generally glowing reactions on social media.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary, put out a press release embargoed for a quiet day of the year, saying that new Government figures revealed that fewer than one in three 16-year-olds were sitting GCSE history.
Released on Wednesday in the UK and US, Century 2009, the final part of the trilogy, has been heavily embargoed to avoid being leaked on to the internet because of its cult status among comic-book fans, but also because of fears of reprisals from Rowling's publishers.
The film is embargoed until its premiere in Berlin, just in time for worldwide release on Valentine's Day.
But I have learnt that over 104,000 other people agree with me, as do 113 cross party MPs, and a stonking support group which sadly I can't name as it's currently embargoed.
